“Oh, mother, I am so sorry!” and Sidney looked mortified and contrite.  “I fully intended to leave the note, but—­”

“You forgot all about it,” finished his sister Fannie, who was sewing at one of the front windows.  “Of course!  Mother ought to have known she couldn’t trust you.  Your intentions are always good, but that is as far as you go.”

“It is a great deal easier to intend to do a thing than to do it—­everybody knows that,” said Clara, a girl of twelve, who had put down her book as her brother came in.  “I suppose as long as we live we’ll have to hear Sidney say, ‘I fully intended.’  I don’t expect anything else.”

And she laughed.

“I can’t help being forgetful,” said Sidney.

“Perhaps not,” said his mother; “but you could go a long way toward carrying out your good intentions if you would only do promptly whatever is given you to do.”

“I will go to Mrs. Flynn’s now,” said Sidney.  “She can get here by ten o’clock, anyway.”

“Very well,” said his mother.  “The sooner you see her, the better it will be for the washing.  This winter sun will not last long.”

Sidney went out, and, hurrying on his overcoat and cap, was soon on the way to the cottage of Mrs. Flynn.

He felt a little depressed, for the remarks of his sisters had hurt his feelings a good deal.

He wondered, as he walked briskly along, if Fannie and Clara never forgot anything.

Next to Mrs. Flynn’s was a small, brown cottage a good deal in want of repairs.  It had needed a coat of paint for many a year, and some of the blinds were broken.  But at the window was a very pretty little girl, with golden curls, and Sidney paused a minute to nod and smile at her.  He knew her quite well, for she was sister to one of the junior clerks in his father’s warehouse.

The child smiled in return, and looked into the rear of the room, saying something Sidney could not hear.  But a moment later the head of a pale, sad-faced woman appeared above that of the little girl.

She bowed to Sidney and then moved quickly away.

“How ill Mrs. Stewart looks!” thought kind-hearted Sidney.  “I imagine Christmas did not bring many good things to this house.  I remember now that I fully intended to send little Mabel a doll; but—­”

And then he stopped and blushed hotly. Another good intention never carried out.

Fortunately, he found Mrs. Flynn in, and she promised to go to his mother at once.  So he walked away, feeling that he had done his best to repair the neglect of the previous day.

His next stopping-place was his father’s office, which was a room built on to the warehouse, and communicating with it by a single door.

There was another door which opened on to a side alley, and was kept always locked.  It was the door used exclusively by his father for entrance and exit.  But Sidney was a privileged person, and had been allowed a pass-key.  So he entered the office now without having to go through the busy warehouse.